The present invention relates to a crop converging arrangement for mower-conditioners, and more specifically relates to crop converging arrangement associated with a rotary cutter bar of a mower-conditioner.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,330, granted Dec. 1, 1998, discloses a mower-conditioner equipped with a rotary cutter bar that includes a pair of converging drum at each of its opposite ends, with each pair of drums cooperating with a converging shield structure to converge cut crop to a narrower stream that is fed to the rear into a conditioning arrangement. This type of converging structure does not satisfactorily converge crop, especially when used with a longer cutter bar for cutting a wider swath of crop.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,064, granted Jul. 18, 1995, discloses a mower-conditioner equipped with a rotary cutter bar that is relatively long and includes a pair of driven converging drums arranged above the two outermost cutting units at each end of the cutter bar and used together with a driven converging element located between them. The pair of converging drums and intermediate converging element are all located in line with the centers of rotation of the cutting discs and in this position are found to cause the cut crop transported by them to the conditioner to interfere with the uncut crop so that it is bent over and is not cleanly cut off.
According to the present invention there is provided an improved converging drum a crop converging arrangement and a conditioner arrangement of a mower-conditioner equipped with a rotary disc cutter bar.
An object of the invention is to provide a crop converging drum defining a plurality of crop-engaging ribs defined by angle members and gap filler plates extending between upper and lower plates.
A more specific object of the invention is provide a converging drum, as defined in the immediately preceding object, wherein the angle members have legs defining a right angle, and wherein the filler plates overlap the legs of the angle members and define ribs located half way between the right angles defined by the angle members.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from a reading of the ensuing description together with the appended drawings.